THE WRAP: A clash over Flash, as users flock to free maps

This week Apple and Adobe clashed over Flash, while U-Mobile hoped to get third time lucky with ST Telemedia.

 

Apple and Adobe engaged in a war of words over Adobe Flash, with Steve Jobs describing the player – which is not installed on the new iPad – as broken. 

 

A teardown revealed that Apple stands to make $208 – a 42% margin – on each entry level iPad, priced at $499.

 

Users downloaded 1.4 million Ovi maps in the first two weeks after Nokia made them available for free.

 

ST Telemedia could become the latest foreign investor in Malaysian cellco U-Mobile. NTT DoCoMo and KTF sold their stakes last year. The company is reported to be taking a one-third stake in the struggling carrier.

 

Potential buyers of Reliance’s global unit are being turned off by the $3 billion price tag.

Cisco shrugged off the recession as it beat forecasts with a 23% higher Q4 net. Sales rose across the board, the company said. 

 

China Unicom warned of a 50% dive in profit thanks to high 3G costs.

 

Softbank Mobile boosted operating income 60%,  thanks to demand for the iPhone, while lower costs helped NTT DoCoMo to a 48% higher net profit.

France Telecom boss Didier Lombard will step down as CEO, but remain as chairman, after months of crisis at the carrier over low morale and a spate of employee suicides.

 

Google asked US spy agency NSA to probe into cyber-attacks that it said originated in China.

 

China Telecom plans to roll out 4Mbps broadband in urban areas to help stem the continued loss of voice lines.

 

Analysts tipped Alcatel-Lucent as the frontrunner to win the contract to manage Bharti Airtel’s national fiber backbone network.

 

The Modi group plans to merge its telecom businesses into a single entity, Spice Mobility.

 

Australian ISP iiNet won a copyright case against major movie studios, with the court ruling carriers could not be held responsible for illicit file sharing by their customers. 

 

Qualcomm will open an R&D center in Korea – its second in Asia and its fourth worldwide.

 

Deutsche Telekom weighed an IPO or a spinoff of its US mobile arm T-Mobile.

 

Yahoo sold its HotJobs employment website to Monster Worldwide for $225 million.

 

Amazon bought touchscreen firm Touchco and plans to integrate its technology into the Kindle.

 

Whistleblower website Wikileaks, which has suspended operations after running out of cash, says it has raised enough money to continue operating, though not enough to pay its staff.

 

A man lost on the ice on the German coast was saved by a woman 500km away who saw his signal for help on a webcam.

 

And a 19-year-old New Zealand student auctioned her virginity for NZ$45,000 ($31,000) to help put her through university.